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What makes a leader? Susan's story

Updated: Feb 1, 2022


Meet Eric and Susan, business leaders and students of Personal Executive Presence.



SUSAN'S STORY: Bitter Pill


With burning cheeks and clammy hands Susan approached the board room’s ceiling-high doors. She was about to appear before her biotech firm’s Executive Committee to learn their decision on her promotion to Vice President of Business Development. She felt herself moving back and forth between nerves and confidence.


“Calm down, Susan, you’ve got this”, she berated herself. After all, she had received a stellar performance review last year based on the projects her team had completed. Even more important, she had overdelivered on the giant, complex slide decks that had successfully landed the company high-profile partnerships with two large pharmaceutical companies. When the past VP of BD announced his retirement, she jumped on the opportunity and applied for the promotion. And now was the moment …


“Susan, you can come in now”. Straightening her lucky blazer, she stepped past the executive assistant into the bright board room and took the empty seat at the imposing conference table. She looked at the faces across, wondering what was going on behind the carefully managed expressions of neutrality.


“Hello Susan. We’ve reviewed your application, your job pitch presentation last week, your 360 evaluation results and the written assessments of your interviewers. We’ve made our decision.”





Four minutes later Susan stepped out in a daze through the doors, which suddenly seemed doubly tall. The light streaming in through the windows was blinding, exacerbating the pounding in her temples. Her body numb, she somehow found the ladies’ room, staggered into a stall and plopped down on the toilet seat. What had just happened?


Everything had started off so well with praise for her team’s performance, the projects she had delivered, and the thoroughness of her application. But the tone had suddenly shifted when the senior VP of Human Resources began to speak.


“Susan, we think you’re a marvelous contributor. We greatly appreciate your technical grasp, your dedication to your projects, to the company, and the way you and your team never cause any headaches for the organization. That said, the assessments from your interviewers and the 360 evaluations was very consistent. People here like you, and they like to work with you, but they’re not inspired by you. They see you as an excellent contributor, but not as a leader. For the VP role, we want to see more. We want to see, you know, that special something, that leadership caliber. We want that X factor, and you just don’t have it.”


Susan felt like she had swallowed a large, ice-cold iron ball. Her fumbling fingers found the cell phone in her lucky jacket’s pocket and her trembling fingers began to tap out an email to her department’s administrative assistant. “Not feeling well; will be OOO for the rest of the day.”




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